ORRVILLE, Ohio (June 19, 2019) — Aaron Reutzel won the feature event on Wednesday at Wayne County Speedway in what was one of the most unique nights in the history of Ohio Sprint Speedweek.

After Atomic Speedway was forced to cancel their Speedweek program due to weather and wet grounds Wayne County picked up the show at the last moment. Retuzel from Clute, Texas took advantage of the “pop-up” race to start on the front row, holding off a mid-race challenge by Tim Shaffer before driving away over the final 10 laps for the victory.

Reutzel credited his start for setting up the remainder of his performance on a tricky racing surface.

“Getting the jump was really important, I didn’t want to have to go real hard trying to catch Tim (Shaffer) because it was pretty treacherous down in one and two,” said Shaffer. “I was able to set my own pace and I would make a mistake here and there and I would see (Shaffer) peak under me and I was able to pick the pace back up for a second and get by some lapped cars.”

The initial attempt to star the feature was interrupted by a violent crash down the backstretch by Spencer Bayston that brought out the red flag. After a few minutes Bayston exited the car under his own power.

The second attempt to start the event saw Reutzel drive to the lead with Shaffer in second. Dean Jacobs held third position for several laps before Rico Abreu and Brock Zearfoss were able to drop Jacobs back to fifth.

Following a caution for a spin by Trevor Baker on lap three Reutzel pulled away before entering slower traffic on lap 12. This allowed Shaffer to close right in on the back bumper of Reutzel. Shaffer was able to get under Reutzel on a couple of occasions, but Reutzel was able to maintain the position. By lap 21 Reutzel cleared the slower traffic and drove away from the field for the victory. Shaffer held off Abreu for second position while Zearfoss and Dean Jacobs rounded out the top three.

Afterwards Reutzel was complementary of the fans that came out for the last minute reschedule and the officials at Wayne County for taking a risk of booking the program.

“I want to thank the track for taking the gamble and all of you great fans showing up,” said Reutzel. “I guess they had a lot of faith in you to do this because that’s something you don’t see anyone do.”